intervention
by purplepotatopig
Summary: friends step in to help jo and zane post space camp...
1. Chapter 1

_as ever, i do not own eureka, or any of its characters - i am but a fan._

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><p><strong>friendly intervention<strong>

Jo was rushing to one of the iso chambers on Level Q. Fargo had beeped her earlier that there was an emergency and she had to come right away. The last time she was here was during the mites incident. What could possibly have gone wrong now?

She finds the door open to Iso Chamber B and goes right in. This was bigger than the one they tested in, and had no fixtures or furnitures. It was just one big empty room. Except, in the middle of the room was…

"Oh my God! Zane!" When she got there, Zane was sprawled unconscious on the floor. She rushed to his side. She knelt down in front of him and felt for his pulse.

Then she heard the door close.

She groaned. Not again!

"Uh, hey Jo."

"Carter?" She turned to the sound of his voice and saw his face on the monitor on the wall.

"Carter! The door closed on us. Get us out of here. Zane might be hurt."

Allison appears beside Carter "He's fine Jo. He'll be a little groggy when the tranq wears out, but other than that there are no side effects."

"Allison, what the hell are you talking about?" Jo was confused and pissed.

"Sorry we had to do it this way Jo" Carter replied sheepishly. He expected Jo's reaction to this stunt they were about to pull.

"We?"

Then she saw that Fargo, Henry and Grace were also in the control room with Carter and Allison. She noticed shadowy figures behind them as well, but right now she was way too mad to care who they were.

She heard a groan from behind her and turned to Zane. He was slowly coming to.

Jo glared at Carter "I will never forgive you for this…"

Carter swallowed hard "I'm hoping you will. Someday."

Allison put her arm around Jack "We hope you'll forgive all of us Jo. We didn't mean to meddle. But as your friends we just couldn't stand by and watch and not do anything. Especially with Zane leaving in a few days."

"I tried to talk them out of it Jo" Fargo chimed in. The others glared at him. "But when I thought about it, I didn't want to get stuck with a grouchy Zane for six months on Titan."

"I'm not grouchy" said Zane. He was now sitting upright holding his head with one hand.

"You are too! And you're even grouchier now than you've ever been before so that's saying a lot."

Zane turns his head to the monitor "What's going on anyway? Last I remember Allison called me to the infirmary and said I needed another inoculation for the mission."

Henry replied "We didn't think you'd go willingly so we had to figure out how to get you down here with minimum fuss."

Carter added "Ease up on the workouts Zane. It took three of us to carry you down here."

Zane smirked. "You could have tried asking me first." He stood up and rubbed his neck.

It was Grace's turn to answer. They really were all in this together. "Look, we just want the two of you to sort things out.

Then she gestured to the rest "It's not like we haven't tried to get the two of you to talk. But you not only avoided each other, you've avoided talking about it with us as well."

Zane was sarcastic "And you think locking us up together in this iso chamber will get us to open up, make up and all will be well?"

Jo, who was standing beside him with her arms crossed, dittoed his sarcasm "Our so-called friends are pulling off an intervention."

Zane looked at Jo then back to the faces on the monitor "Well, they were your friends first." he reminded her.

He likewise crossed his arms across his chest and looked at them with disgust. "Not nice guys. And not necessary."

In a hard voice but with a pained expression on her face, Jo said "It's over. We're done."

Carter was exasperated "Then get closure. The two of you are being so stubborn about this, it's not silly anymore.

He points at Jo "You're sad all the time"

Then points to Zane "You're sullen all the time"

"And you're both hurt and miserable. It's become painful to watch."

He leans forward "So talk it out. We can't have another season of this."


	2. Chapter 2

In the control room, Henry had turned off the iso chamber monitor so Zane and Jo couldn't see or hear them, but they could all see what was going on inside their chamber.

"They're not talking! It's been an hour and they're not talking!" Fargo had his chin on the control table, his eyes focused on the monitor.

Jo was sitting on one side of the room with her back to the wall. She was hugging her knees and her head was in between them.

Zane was pacing angrily on the other side of the room.

"This used to be easier…" sighed Carter.

"Well apparently throwing them together into a room is not enough anymore" Allison, seated beside him, was rubbing his back, hoping to ease his frustration.

Grace, because she knew these two for a shorter time compared to the others, had to ask "Do they now hate each other that much?"

Carter was confident with his answer, albeit exasperated "Nahh. They're just stupid and stubborn and miserable"

"Hey, don't say that about Jo and Zane! They've had it bad as it is." A voice from the back piped in.

Carter turned to the other presence in the room "And don't I know it. You only get to watch it happen. We _live_ it. And it's gotten painful and almost unbearable. We're just as desperate for that happier ending as you are."

"Isn't that what this intervention is for?" Henry addressed the group. "We all love Jo and Zane and they need our help." He turned to the pair on the monitor. "So now that we've established they are not going to do this on their own, any suggestions on how to give them a push?"

"Zane can be a clueless nitwit sometimes. We need to spell it out for him. " said beaglesplus7

''Do we do a sweet Zane or spicy Zane?" asked Sydnew

"Can't he be both?" purplepotatopig asked excitedly.

"Can we have Zane take his shirt off?" hatondog asked.

"Is that really necessary?" Fargo asked.

"Yes!" everyone on that side of the room replied.

OrionM42 pointed out "It always gets a reaction from Jo. And obviously from us" she said with a grin.

"Or we can give Jo a shower scene, or have her strut around in her lingerie. Zane looooves scenes like that…" said Sara60691

The men groaned "We'd rather not. Can we go for something less…racy?" said Henry

"You want action? We can put Jo in danger, say create a wormhole that sucks her in? Maybe Zane will panic and declare undying love?" suggested CopperMinted

"I think Zane needs to be the one sucked in a wormhole…" grumbled Sydnew.

"I can put Zane in a coma if you want?" volunteered AllyrienDM

"How about firing up the FTL and sending Zane to Titan?" said hatondog

"As long as you bring him back. How will they talk if he's out there and she's here? Unless you plan to send Jo after him?" pointed out purplepotatopig.

"I'd rather Jo tazer Zane for being such an ass. Has everyone forgotten he burned down her house? All those in favor?" said ZeroGain

A few hands went up.

"What if we just have Zane ambush Jo with a kiss? She can never resist that." suggested beaglesplus7

"He hardly seems to be in the mood for kissing right now." Grace points out

"Well, we can re-create the sonic barrage. Maybe it'll work backwards this time. A sonic barrage that gets them to kiss rather than as the result of a kiss?" suggested Pchefbeth

"What sonic barrage?" asked Carter

We all looked at each other and gave them a sample of the "sonic barrage"*

"You just had to ask, huh Jack?" said Henry with his hands over his ears

"Well, did it work?" Carter shouted.

Henry looked at the monitor and shook his head.

messersmontana raises a hand "What if we throw in Taggart to make Zane jealous?"

And adds "Or bring back Zoe to make Jo jealous?"

"Hey, that's my daughter you're talking about!" Carter protested.

"Sorry Sheriff"

"May I suggest we start them off on a romantic dinner, then maybe the ballet and end the night with candles?" suggests OrionM42

"You must be the fluff fairy" Fargo sits up and smiles at her.

"I thought so…" then Fargo asks sheepishly "Would you mind sprinkling some fluff dust my way?"

"Don't worry Fargo. I'm working on a storyline for you and your redheads" purplepotatopig said with a wink at Fargo

"What if we bring in his mom? Zane would listen to her" suggested hatondog

"Or Jo's brothers?" added bittie752

"What if we send in their future children?" suggested Sydnew

"Aww, but that usually makes Zane melt – seeing his future kids with Jo" said purplepotatopig

"Exactly!"

"Or I could turn Zane into a werewolf?" said Sydnew

"What if we play them a song like Reckless?" said Sara60691

"Let's go fantasy! Let them think they're the lead characters in a romantic fairytale!" put in JustWriter2

"Or we can give them dreams - you know, the kind of dreams they won't admit to having about each other?" said BithaBlu with a sly grin

Carter was astounded "Where do you guys come up with all of these ideas? And these usually end happily for the two?"

Heads nodded.

Allison, ever the voice of reason, spoke up. "Much as I would be interested to pursue any of those ideas, why don't we start with the simplest one first and see how that goes."

Carter was confused. "What's simple?"

Allison answered back with a smile "Feed them dialogue. We brought them here to talk didn't we? Hopefully that starts the ball rolling and let's see from there?"

Grace seemed agreeable to the idea "Hmm. That's good. But how do we suggest the words to them. We need to develop some kind of neuro-suggestion device in order to feed the dialogue to their cerebral cortex without them realizing we're giving them thought starters"

That started a flurry of activity at the back of the room

"No prob. We'll write one up. One neuro-suggestion gizmo coming right up."

"Do you want to give it a name?"

"How about NIALL – Neural Implied…

"Never mind, start typing…"

BithaBlu clapped her hands together in delight "This is gonna be gooood. I'm making popcorn!"

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><p>* in case you're not familiar, please read "shipped apart"<p>

_author's note : this is a shout-out to my fellow eureka fanfic writers, i hope you don't mind the liberties i took including you in this chapter. to those i did not get to mention by name, please don't fret. please know that i have read practically all the eureka stories i could get my hands on in this site and i've enjoyed all of them. the ones i used here were chosen for storyline purposes primarily._


	3. Chapter 3

Zane stopped pacing. He looked at Jo for a moment, and seemed to have made a decision. He crossed over to where she was and sat down beside her. Not too close, but close enough.

"You know Jo, I'm not mad at you."

Jo lifted her head up, and looked at him "Well, you had me fooled. You sure act like you are."

Zane sighed "That's the problem with you sometimes Jo. You think you know me so well, but maybe, just maybe, you don't know me as well as you think you do."

Before Jo could protest to that, Zane continued "I'm not mad at you for pulling out of the Astraeus mission. If you changed your mind, and figured that you weren't going to Astraeus for the right reasons, I could understand that. And I could deal with that.

Although I'd miss you like hell. I really would. But its not like I can't call you everyday. "

"I was just hurt that you didn't talk to me about your decision. I had to learn about it by accident, and then you started acting like you didn't owe me an explanation beyond that "it was my decision"…"

Jo replied "I figured you were upset because I wasted your time, with all the prep we did for Astraeus."

Zane reached over and touched Jo's arm "Jo, you are never a waste of my time. Whether we were studying, fighting, eating, having amazing sex or doing absolutely nothing, it was _our_ time. Together."

Zane removed his hand. "I was mostly hurt because I trusted you. And you still didn't seem to trust me back. And I'm hurt that you thought not going to Astraeus would change how I feel about you."

Jo looked at Zane intently. She was quiet for a moment before she dared ask the question "How _do_ you feel about me Zane?"

"I think that's obvious."

Jo scoffed "No. It's not. I don't know what you want. You accuse me of assuming I know you, I can throw that back at you. You're assuming I know perfectly well how you feel."

Now it was Zane who was quiet for a moment "Point taken…"

He turned and faced her fully, taking her hands into his own "I'm in love with you Jo. You and I both need to accept that as a fact."

Seeing tears forming in her eyes, he reached out a hand to cup her face "Why can't you just love me back?" he asked softly. "Why was it so easy the last time and so hard this time around?"

Jo let the tears fall "You don't understand Zane. It's not that it was any easier the last time. But when I lost that Zane, it almost broke me.

But then I had _you_ here. I had hope. Maybe you could fall in love with me again…and when you started noticing me again and looking at me the way you are now, that hope was turning into a reality."

But I was also so scared at the same time. You were the same and yet so different from the other Zane. What if things didn't work out this time around? If I lost you again this time, there is no other Zane to turn to. I can't go jumping through timelines to find the Zane I'm supposed to live happily ever after with." Jo ended with a sob.

"Oh Jo…" Zane gathered her in his arms.

He started rubbing her back to calm down her sobs.

"Jo, I promise…"

"Don't Zane. Don't make promises you may not keep"

"Oh this promise I intend to keep. You and I both need to make this promise"

He pulled away so she could look at him.

"We need to promise to always try and never give up, on us, on each other. And we need to believe that we were meant to be. The universe cannot be that cruel to put us in the same position and have us fail twice. You have your faith. My scientific brain refuses to accept that the equation doesn't end up with us being together. "

Jo nodded. And smiled. A small smile that turned into a big smile. "So what do we do now?"

Zane smiled as well. "Well we can kiss. We usually end with a kiss."

"I'm game with that"

"Then maybe we can have…dessert" he grinned mischievously.

"Someday, you need to explain to me what this reference to dessert is all about…but I think I have an idea."

As Zane leaned in closer, Jo reminded him "Zane, we have an audience though."

Without breaking stride, Zane called out in a loud voice "Uh, guys. We're all good. Thanks for caring but we'll take it from here."


	4. Chapter 4

Carter turned off the feed from the iso chamber.

"Aww, we don't get to see Zane with his shirt off!"

"Thank God. Once was enough for me" said Fargo.

"Our job here is done." Carted looked pleased.

Henry turned to the group "Thanks guys." he said, then smiled and rubbed his hands "So, now that you have your happy ending for Jo and Zane, we were thinking…"

Everyone started talking at once.

Grace piped up "Henry and I want a honeymoon. Somewhere exotic."

"Can you write about future babies for me and Carter? I just want to see what they would be like." Allison whispered.

"How about a bromance for me and Henry?" Carter said with a laugh.

"So which redhead do I end up with? asked Fargo

"Which one do you want?"

"Can it be M-rated?"


End file.
